There has long been and continues to be a very significant need for effective means of destroying, sterilizing or otherwise neutralizing waste from a variety of industrial or institutional sources. In many instances, it is impractical or undesirable to move these waste materials off-site for treatment. At the same time, the only on-site treatment which is economically viable has been by way of burning.
As has become more evident in recent years, a wide variety of toxic gases are frequently given off in burning of industrial or institutional waste, such as hospital waste.
Medical and biomedical waste accounts for up to 50% of all waste material generated by hospitals. This includes anatomical waste, animal waste, laboratory waste, human blood and body fluid, and waste sharps, as well as any waste which may have come in contact with infectious agents at any level of exposure.
Current methods of treating hospital waste, such as incineration or steam autoclaving result in not only toxic gases but also in an incomplete or uneven sterilization of the waste, thus requiring further treatment steps at great time and expense. In addition, standard incinerators or autoclaves require expensive pollution control equipment to remove potentially toxic emissions from the process. In all, the volume reduction from each of these alternatives fails to meet the costs and environmental hazards inherent in the processes.
While microwave treatment has been proposed as a method of dealing with such waste, systems have not become widely available which are secure against leakage, environmentally acceptable and economically reasonable. For example, the systems must be sealed against leakage at all steps of the process to prevent not only against leaking of toxic gases but also of microwaves. The systems must also be cost and energy efficient. Thus it is necessary to apply an appropriate amount of microwave energy, for a suitable time period, for the amount of waste being treated.